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Add to the things that have broken at the touch of my hand, a Command Max Power Paint Sprayer.

Michael has one of the bigger power painters, like you’d use to paint a whole house; and did NOT recommend that I try this smaller version. However, I had read a review of the product on another blog, by a gal who does a lot of painting of furniture and she gave it a thumbs up.

Since the most time consuming and labor intensive part if what I do is the painting, I decided it was worth a try. If it didn’t work for me, I’d send it back. The least I could do was ‘give it a try’. Home Depot doesn’t carry it IN the stores, so I ordered on-line.

It arrived and the ‘waiting game’ began. Waiting for a DRY day so I could have a paint-a-thon. Only had to wait a couple of weeks for a gorgeous sunny Sunday. Michael helped me get all set up.

We laid out one of the BIG disposable plastic tarps in the driveway to work on.

Michael pulled all the unfinished shelves he had made out of the storage shed. Since it’s faster and easier to make then in quantity, he always makes several at a time. Then we store them until I am ready to paint them. ONE shelf like this would usually take me the better part of a day to paint. And at the end of that day, my back was sure to let me know I’d over done it.

These are birch plywood shelves, so the PLY shows on the front edges. I sand the edges EXTRA well, then apply a good primer, like KILZ. It was such a nice warm day that by the time I got all the shelves primed, the first one was dry enough to start painting.

BEHIND the shelf in the front of this photo, you can see how Michael set the shelves up on saw horses for me to paint. since you can’t TIP the sprayer to reach those inside nooks and corners, you have to manipulate the shelf to accommodate the painting. That was one thing I found to be difficult about using the sprayer. And perhaps the NEXT time, I would hand paint those inside corners first, then use the sprayer for the rest of it.

One thing that REALLY surprised me about the paint sprayer is how HEAVY it was to USE! The box felt quite lightweight when it arrived. But holding the filled sprayer ‘in painting position’ made my wrist ache almost instantly. I have a wrist brace which helped a little. Just had to keep switching hands, and resting a few minutes every ten minutes. Once you START painting you can’t stop for more than 30 minutes or the sprayer will clog.

As I was finishing up the third shelf and wanted to stop for a short rest, I let go of the trigger, but it kept spraying!! Yanked the power cord to get it to stop and called for Michael to come take a look at it. I emptied and cleaned it, lest there be a clog, and Michael looked at the switch. Couldn’t find any way to fix it. I finished up the third shelf anyhow, so all the paint would match.

Called the customer service number provided and they gave me a return # and said to send it back; which I promptly did. Not sure WHERE things stand right now. The charge for it was still on the card I used to pay for it, and I haven’t heard anything about them sending me another one. So ………………..

We’ll see where this all goes! Overall I was thrilled to be able to get THREE shelves painted in a few hours time. And shelves have the MOST surface area to paint of just about any furniture piece. I can envision getting a whole slew of furniture pieces painted in one day with this baby. IF I can get one that’s not defective!